Chook Head Clarrie
When I was a young minister freshly graduated and ordained, my first ministry in the 1960’s, after seven years of the slums of Newmarket, was in a small country church, in the small country town of Ararat, gateway to the Wimmera in Western Victoria. There I learnt the difficult art faced by all city bred ministers, of becoming a country parson.
On the other side to Geoff Judd’s farm which occupied all one side of Mount Ararat, was Chook Head Clarrie’s farm. The boundary of Geoff Judd’s property ran up one side of the mountain to the very peak and then down along the other side. The other side of his boundary fence was the property owned by Chook Head Clarrie.
It was a very old run down farm that had belonged to his father and grandfather before him. They had staked out a claim to this property in the land rush era of the 1850’s. Although the farm was of great value it was a very low producing farm and was very badly managed.
The farm was situated in some of Western Victoria’s best sheep country, but Clarrie did not run sheep. In an earlier age the farm had produced wool which would be taken to Melbourne on great drays hauled by oxen. But for some reason Clarrie’s father had moved from sheep to free range chickens selling eggs and carcasses. However, the chickens had to battle for their living with the rabbits which bred more profusely than did the fowls. Apart from the rabbits and the chooks they had a few vealers and breeding cattle on the property.
The boundary fence which ran up the side of Mount Ararat separating Geoff’s well managed farm from Chook Head Clarrie’s was always a bone of contention between the pair of them. Clarrie made no effort whatever to keep his fences in good order and took no rabbit control action at all. Geoff put out 1080 rabbit bait, dug furrows and laid poisoning, hired Old Bill the Rabbito when he came round to eradicate warrens, kept rabbit proof fencing around all of his property, and gas fumigated new warrens where he saw them spreading. But his bone of contention was that his neighbour did nothing and rabbits always managed to scratch through some rusty part of the rabbit proof fencing and come into his lush, improved pasture where the grass grew better because of good management, erosion control and superphosphate.
The fact was that Chook Head Clarrie and his father were extremely poor farm managers. The father and son looked like two peas from one pod. They wore the same thick flannel undershirts and flannel overshirts, big baggy brown farming trousers complete with wide braces and a large leather belt and thick sturdy farm boots. They wore the same battered old hats and from a distance it was hard to tell who was father and who was son. They gathered in a few eggs and sold a few chooks but very largely the farm was just slowly running down.
They were an independent pair, living on their own and looking after themselves. They did not believe in asking for help, listening to the Stock and Land Inspectors who came around, taking advice from any of the Department of Agriculture leaflets, or heeding the advice given by the Noxious Weeds and Pests Department Inspectors who always had good reason to call on their property.
When they received official directions about the management of their property, either of noxious weeds or pests they probably intended to do something about them but the net result was that nothing ever happened.
During my time in Ararat three things happened that I remember with Chook Head Clarrie, the rather grubby, unwashed and unshaven son of a rather grubby, unwashed and unshaven father on the other side of the Mount Ararat dividing fence.
The first event occurred when both iron water tanks attached to the house rusted out. The “boys” as father and son were jointly referred to by the locals in the area, had to get a replacement tank. They were as mean as could be and never spent money on themselves, on entertainment, on pasture improvement or any improvements around the house. I doubted, for example, that they possessed a television set although in a fit of wild extravagance I could have imagined that at some time in the 30’s they may have purchased a radio. The purchase of new galvanised water tanks was a big expenditure and must have caused them a lot of heartache. In the end they decided not to purchase two galvanised iron water tanks, but thought it would be more economical in the long run to purchase one concrete water tank which would last throughout Chook Head Clarrie’s life. Only they did not want to pay full price, they wanted to pay it off, and they believed they could install it themselves. As a result the old unregistered truck that they had on their property which had no floor boards under the driving seat, was seen one day struggling up the hill towards their property with a huge 5,000 gallon concrete tank on the back. They had driven down to Ballarat and had one loaded on the back of the truck and were driving it home themselves.
Apparently they decided to save money by picking up the tank from the manufacturers and by installing it themselves. They had demolished the old wooden platform on which the two rusted iron tanks had been sitting for the best part of a century and they had levelled out part of the steeply sloping earth at the side of the house where the tanks had stood so that they could slide the huge concrete 5,000 gallon tank off the back of the old truck onto its new resting place.
Apparently the boys had decided that they could manage it between the pair of them. If they slid it off the back of the truck and it landed in the wrong spot, then they would just connect up the down pipes from the equally rusty spouting around the roof to it. Apparently they felt they could drop the concrete water tank close enough to where it needed to rest and by doing it themselves they would save all the expense of the company bringing their special truck together with crane and lifting gear.
I did not witness what happened next although it was the talk of the town for weeks after. Chook Head Clarrie drove the old Morris truck up the side of the hill to the side of the house where they had cut into the sloping ground, a level spot upon which the base of the 5,000 gallon concrete water tank would rest. Then they used crowbars to lever the concrete tank across to the end of the truck where they had sturdy planks forming a ramp down to the level earth. Their plan was to slide the concrete tank onto the ramp of planks, then drive the truck from underneath it with the concrete tank coming down to rest on the level spot of earth.
At least that was the plan. The boys had levered the huge heavy tank to the end of the old Morris and slowly over onto the ramp of planks, when the heavy concrete tank decided to have a mind of its own.
Rebelling against the constant levering the crowbars under its far edge, it started to slide down the ramp much faster than the boys had anticipated, and when it reached the bottom of the ramp instead of stopping there, it tipped over. Now they had a huge 5,000 gallon concrete tank on its side on the side of a steep hill, part of Mount Ararat. The boys could not stop it.
It started to roll and as it built up speed, it soon was travelling faster than the old Morris truck ever could as it went straight down the side of the hill. Now a 5,000 gallon concrete tank has a fair amount of weight and when you add to it the momentum it built up rolling down the hill there were few things that would stand in its way.
The only thing standing between it and the creek at the bottom was a fairly new barbed wide fence that Chook Head Clarrie had put up across the back of the house block to keep the few cattle he had on the property from walking in the back door of the house. The rolling tank hit the barbed wire fence with great force.
Now Clarrie had been proud of his barbed wire fence. He had reasoned it was going to be there for a pretty long time and as he hadn’t any old second hand barbed wire, he had purchased some new three stand barbed wire to construct the fence to keep the cattle out of the house block. He had very cleverly attached the barbed wire fence up one end to their ramshackle chook shed and up the other end had tied it around the main post of his hay shed. The old chook shed had seen better years and often looked as if a good breath of wind would blow it over. The old hay shed, on the other hand, already had a great slope on it as it faced downhill. The only thing that was strong about the place was the new three strand barbed wire fence.
Consequently when the rolling 5,000 gallon concrete tank hit the barbed wire fence it hardly shuddered in its progress downhill but continued rolling dragging the barbed wire with it. Behind it the barbed wire firmly attached to the chook shed, pulled the main corner post out of the chook shed and dragged it and half the roof with it. The other end of the barbed wire fence had been very securely wired around the corner post of the hay shed and when that came out there was not sufficient to keep the hay shed standing and that too came down.
All of which was the reason why Chook Head Clarrie had a tumbled down hay shed, a collapsed chook shed, a barbed wire fence that down ran along the creek line, and an unused 5,000 gallon concrete water tank in the creek, which is a rather strange place for a water tank to be. In that condition the tank, the fence, their hay shed and the chook shed remained.
The second event that caused a great deal of mirth around the Shire of Ararat concerned the time when Chook Head Clarrie decided to cut down the Norfolk pine.
The real problem started with his grandfather who placed their Christmas tree in a galvanised bucket outside of the house one year just by the back door. He always meant to take it further down the property later on but never got around to it. He had dug up a small Norfolk pine that had been growing on the property and placed it in a galvanised bucket so that Clarrie’s father, when he was young, about seventy years earlier, could have a real growing Christmas tree in the house. Knowing the boys, I guess the Christmas tree stayed in the house for two or three months before eventually it was put outside the back door. The old galvanised bucket bottom rusted out, and the vigorously growing young Norfolk pine’s roots when down through the bottom of the bucket into the soil and by next Christmas their Christmas tree was well and truly rooted outside the door. It was such a nice growing tree they decided to leave the Christmas tree by the door and decorate it out there, which they did for several years. However, that was more than sixty years ago and the huge Norfolk pine which now overshadowed the entire house and was more than three foot thick in diameter, was right outside the back door.
Now Chook Head Clarrie and his dad had been used to walking under this tree all their lives so it was not the presence of the tree that caused problems. Nor was it all the leaves that clogged up their spouting and helped rot the iron on their roof. The real problem occurred when they bought a galvanised water tank to replace the aforementioned 5,000 gallon concrete tank which rolled down the hill, they had to replace the guttering around the roof. It was while they were in the act of working on the roof replacing the guttering that their insurance man came round and told them that the insurance company had refused to accept any liaibility on their farmhouse property any further because they had allowed a tree to grow to a height in excess of twenty feet adjacent to the house. If lightening should strike the tree or if a big branch should fall off it, then the insurance company disclaimed any liability because the occupiers had not kept it trimmed to reasonable height. If they wanted the house insured then they had to have the tree cut down.
What with the cost of the galvanised tank and the new spouting, together with a few sheets of roofing iron that needed to be replaced, Chook Head Clarrie came to the conclusion it would be cheaper if they got rid of the tree while they were at it.
One Thursday, which was traditionally market day when everybody came into town, Chook Head Clarrie had driven his old ute down to the Ararat saw mills and asked if they would come and chop down his tree. He thought he would give them the wood if they would take away the tree. The Ararat saw mills were quite pleased to take away his tree, but they would charge him 200 pounds to cut it down. Chook Head Clarrie was absolutely shocked. He thought that giving them the tree was a fair return for them cutting it down. The sawmill said that they charged for cutting down trees in private property and the people usually wanted them to take the wood anyway.
Chafing over the cost of having someone else take down the tree, the boys decided it would be cheaper to buy a chain saw, cut down the tree themselves and then saw up the wood which they could sell in town. They reckoned that they could make 200 pounds from the firewood, and then have the chain saw paid for plus make a profit.
So it was that Chook Head Clarrie came into town one day and drove the ute to McMillan’s Automotive and Farm Sales and Spares and purchased a large petrol driven chain saw.
Ted McMillan said, “Now Clarrie, you know how to use these things do you?” Of course Clarrie knew how to use them. “You will have to be very careful with those chain saws. A man can lose a leg as quick as winking with one of those big brutes.” Clarrie assured him that he could use the chain saw and he would use it with safety.
In the old days the boys used to cut trees by hand but this huge Norfolk pine would have been an enormous job to cut by hand so they decided to fell it with the chain saw. Chook Head Clarrie knew what he had to do and there was just enough room between the wall of the house and the back of the Norfolk pine to start sawing.
Mr. McMillan had started to tell him about where to notch and cut the tree but Clarrie said he knew all about cutting trees and that when he was a kid he had helped his dad clear the back paddock.
Clarrie and his dad had worked out where to let the tree fall. With the barbed wire fence no longer strung between the chook shed and the hay shed, and with the chook shed and the hay shed no longer close to the house, they had plenty of room to let it fall down hill in the house paddock. Being brand new the chain saw cut quickly and deeply into the Norfolk pine. Clarrie knew he had to cut a deep wedge on one side which he did facing the house and then on the other side, cut through low to the base. They had already agreed they would not bother shifting the stump.
The sweet smell of the Norfolk pine tree filled the air. There was not a breath of wind and the huge tree stood perfectly still while it was cut off two feet above the ground. Clarrie held the saw grimly as it bit deeper and deeper into the trunk of the tree. Then he heard the first creaks as the huge tree slowly began to move. He was quite pleased. Mr. McMillan told him to be careful lest when the tree started to move it jammed the chain. But working on the outside of the tree Chook Head Clarrie was pleased that the chain wasn’t jamming, in fact the cut was opening up ever so little. It was at that moment he began to look up just as his dad said “Hey, Clarrie, .....”
The top of the tree was moving slowly, inexorably, in the direction of their house!
The tree came down with an almighty crash, right through the centre of Chook Head Clarrie’s house. His dad said later as he ran away from the house, he had looked back in time to see both ends of the roof go up in the air about three feet. It did not just slice the house in half, it pushed the whole thing over like a pack of cards and totally flattened it leaving the old galvanised roof sticking out with both ends sticking up in the air. The huge branches of the Norfolk pine had flattened every single room in their progress down.
From that moment on there was a stream of cars coming out from Ararat to drive into their property and up to Chook Head Clarrie’s paddock gate just to stand and look at the tree and the flattened house.
In the country people don’t wait to be invited to a flood or a bush fire or a natural disaster. And this was a disaster equivalent to all three occurring simultaneously. People came from miles around to see how Chook Head Clarrie had cut down the tree right on top of his own house.
We went out to see as well, and as we walked up with our friend Geoff Judd, Clarrie and his dad were standing outside to talking to various people as they in turn arrived to pay their respects to the late departed house.
I always thought the conversation between Geoff and Chook Head Clarrie was a classic. Geoff simply opened the conversation by saying “Cut down the tree?” Clarrie, “Yeah. I made a mistake. I should have used the axe. You can’t trust those chain saws, you’ve got no control over the direction where they cut.”
Of course the insurance company declined all liability because after all they had warned the two men they would not be responsible for any act of God as far as the tree was concerned. And as far as the tree was concerned this was no act of God but an act of deliberate stupidity.
I started by telling you that there were three events in the life of Chook Head Clarrie that I remember. The way the tank went down the hill and the way they cut the Norfolk pine were two. The third had to do with the time Clarrie decided to get married and he went down to Melbourne to visit the Royal Easter show. But I am afraid that story will have to wait to another night.
I am not quite sure what I ever learnt from Chook Head Clarrie when I was a young city bred minister in my first country parish. But I got an idea that there were so many lessons out there available to anyone who would care to look. There were lessons about listening to advice from other people, about knowing what you were doing before you started, about asking for help when you needed it, about acting responsibly with what you owned and so on. I know we were full of talking about what we had seen and learnt when I came home to the country manse at 90 High Street, opposite the Railway Station, having learnt another lesson in the difficult art of becoming a country parson.
GORDON MOYES